Touted in January as one of 2013's next-big-things, London duo AlunaGeorge are
living up to the hype with an irresistible fusion of r&b and electropop,
says Ben Thompson.

By the time the pop year reaches its halfway point, the inflated reputations of most of January’s next-big-things will generally have popped like so many kids’ party balloons. Yet, one much-touted name whose stock continues to rise as 2013 progresses is AlunaGeorge.

This London-based duo, comprising glamorous frontwoman Aluna Francis and gifted producer George Reid, might have met on the internet – but the musical connection they have established (first with each other, and then with a seven-figure YouTube constituency) is anything but virtual.

Their 100,000-selling recent single, Attracting Flies, achieves an irresistible equilibrium between the blatant catchiness of early Eighties electropop and the sonic audacity of American r&b production wizards Timbaland and Pharrell Williams. And with Williams currently enjoying a resurgence at the helm of Robin Thicke’s addictively sinister global hit Blurred Lines, the circumstances could hardly be more auspicious for next month’s release of AlunaGeorge’s first album, Body Music.

The great thing about this seductively synthetic party record is that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If – as currently seems probable – Body Music goes straight into the album charts at number one, it will be the third home-grown dance debut this year to achieve that feat (following Home by Hackney’s exuberant Rudimental, and Settle by baby-faced Reigate-based siblings Disclosure).

Anyone out there thinking “It must be a long time since that’s happened” is on the right track, but not far enough down the road: it’s actually never happened before. And over the past few months, live performances by these three acts have even achieved the seemingly impossible feat of livening up Later… with Jools Holland.

Although coming from very different backgrounds musically, one thing all have in common is the ability to put a new – and internationally accessible – twist on what started out as distinctly British musical forms.

For Rudimental it was the rough-and-ready Nineties underground dance style, drum and bass, to which they added a dash of euro-house euphoria, the odd unexpected trumpet solo, and the gutbucket soul vocals of John Newman.

Disclosure’s source material – the infectiously jaunty turn-of-the-century shuffle of UK Garage – is a little more recent (and given that one of these Surrey brothers is still in his teens, that’s hardly surprising).

AlunaGeorge – in some ways the least explicitly nostalgic of the trio – also hark back the furthest, to the Thatcher-era electropop heyday of Yazoo and the Pet Shop Boys. As with comedy double acts, the key to a great synth duo is achieving the right balance of clearly definable characteristics – the cerebral Neil Tennant and the deadpan Chris Lowe, the soulful Alison Moyet and the boffinish Vince Clarke.

The sultry Aluna Francis and the sardonic George Reid currently seem to be playing a blinder on this front, and on many others.